West Virginia man sentenced for Gardner Museum fraud

May 16 (UPI) -- A federal judge sentenced a West Virginia man to time served and three years supervised release for his attempt to sell paintings stolen from a Boston art museum, the Justice Department said.

Todd Andrew Desper, 48, pleaded guilty in February to four counts of wire fraud and attempted wire fraud. Of the three years supervised release, three months must be served in home confinement, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Desper, who used the online handle "Mordokwan," never had access to any of the 13 paintings stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but offered two of them for sale on Craigslist. He solicited foreign buyers for Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt and The Concert by Johannes Vermeer.

Prosecutors said Desper directed interested buyers to create an encrypted email account to communicate with him.